Canberra-Nara Candle Festival

The Canberra-Nara Candle Festival on 22 October marks its 18th anniversary of the Canberra-Nara sister city relationship. I took three-hour ride by bus from Sydney especially for this event and booked a hotel two months ago, and all paid of yesterday afternoon! It's the biggest Japanese Festival I've ever attended in Australia, thousands folk enjoy the Japanese culture, food and thousands of candles lit up by the mayor of Nara city when the sun goes down. 

The event starts around 5pm and features live Japanese entertainment, origami, ikebana, lantern making, mochi making demonstration, and surely the food! The weather was perfect at Lennox Garden just behind the Hyatt Hotel, enjoying the performances including the Nara University High School students singing and dancing AKB48 songs, tasting the freshly made mochi, amazed by the spectacles of 2,000 shimmering candles, there were lots of fun.

(The performances)

(The stalls)

(The mochi-pounding team)

(Sake tasting)

Fuji Pan

Pan in Japanese means 'bread', this Fuji Pan and Fujiya restaurant  are under the same management and they are located in the same building just on the corner of Goulburn and George street in Sydney CBD. I tried the crab and cheese, chocolate and melon, and chocolate croissant and love them all! This Japanese bread has a smooth texture but much firmer than the typical Asian bread.

I didn't get the chance to take picture of each breads since I finished them all on my way home.. Yakitate! :)

updated with new photos:

(I love this Snow white choco..)

Oiden

If you are a regular customer of Menya Mappen, you might have noticed its new 'sister restaurant' just opened last month right next door, Oiden.

Oiden serves more rice bowls while Mappen specializes in udon and soba, they both have lots of tempting tempura and small serve of side dishes in affordable price, both offer cozy atmosphere of Japanese eateries in the 70's (or earlier?) and same great hospitality. It's a bit hard for me to choose either to go the the left side for soba or to the right one for rice bowl.

(Oiden set meal comprises rice, miso sup, pickles and coleslaw)

(Potato salad)

(Tuna tataki bowl)

(Eggplant)

(Eggplant and barramundi tempura)

Matsuri in Sydney 2011

Matsuri in Sydney 2011 is coming soon!
Set your reminder on October 15 at Palm Grove Darling Harbour!